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Costume: Written Clothing

Citation for published version: Thompson, S 2013, 'Costume: Written Clothing', Art Review, no. September 2013.

Link: Link to publication record in Edinburgh Research Explorer

Document Version: Early version, also known as pre-print

Published In: Art Review

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Download date: 25. Sep. 2021 Costume: Written Clothing Tramway, Glasgow 3 May -16June

In Aesthetic Theory (1970) Theodor Adorno noted themes by dravñng together a fairly disparate floor-to-ceiling, street-facing windows which that 'great artists since Baudelaire were in range of artists who have, according to curator appear as a pop-up shop in the gallery space - conspiracy with fashion'. As a significant feature Claire Jackson, conceived of costume as 'a device or to Cuffand Collar (2010), a monumental oil-on- of many modernist and early avant-garde prism through which to investigate relationships linen painting by Alexis Marguerite Teplin. movements, costume has long offered a space between performance, image and Sculpture.' Other works include videos such as Walker for the critical collision between fashion, As a whole, the exhibition succeeds in (2010) by Pablo Bronstein, inkjet prints by Sarah adornment, performance, theatre and art. highlighting the multifarious and layered Wright and sculptural collage/assemblage From Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven approaches to costume adopted by contempo- by Steven Cairns. and Sonia Delaunay to Theo van Doesburg and rary artists, yet the sheer number and variety of Some ofthe strongest components of Hans Arp, artists have adopted gesture, pose, works on show might also be deemed its biggest the exhibition ofFer the audience an opportunity performance and costume as powerful modes flaw. Any thematic coherence, however subtle or to revisit the relics of performances past, of expression and critique. Long before Lady nuanced, is sometimes lost within a fairly reactivating debates on what Amelia Jones has Gaga's appropriation of Jana Sterbak's Vanitas: crowded, cacophonous arrangement. The works described as 'presence in absentia'. In Joanne Flesh Dress for an Albino Anorectic (1987), art and themselves are also uneven and it can be hard to Tatham and Tom O'Sullivan's costume from costume had pursued a reciprocal, if sometimes ascertain the rationale for the inclusion for some Think, Think Thingamajig: What Do You Represent? fractious, relationship. Artists' interest in ofthem. On the other hand, Jackson has avoided (2006) and Clare Stephenson and Sophie costume continues unabated today, perhaps no the temptation to devise the kind of heavy- Macpherson's Untitled (Tracksuit) (2012) and more so than in interrogations of gender and handed, overly curated or tightly woven theme Untitled (Opera Cloak) (2012), for example, the identity through performativity. where, as John Baldessari has observed, artists works are provocative in questioning the status EoUowing Roland Barthes's notion are used simply to illustrate a curator's thesis. As of these formerly inhabited and performed of'written clothing' (as articulated in The Fashion such, works range from Matthew Darbyshire's costumes as static sculptural objects which System, 1967), the group show Costume: Written Standardised Production Clothing Versions 1-10 (2009) simultaneously historicise and document Clothing attempts to reflea on some of these - garments on mannequins displayed in past work. Susannah Thompson

Alexis Marguerite Teplin, Paul, 2009, Undine, 2012, Elsa, 2012, Ludovic, 2009 (installation view. Tramway, Glasgow), oil on linen, dimensions variable. Courtesy the artist and Mary Mary, Glasgow

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